Life has taken a sudden interior turn but the literature of the lockdown may have already been written. A century ago writers throughout the supposedly civilised world realised their once familiar, domestic world had changed profoundly and began to describe it in singular unsettling ways. The best word for what they found and how they described it is the German one ‘unheimlich’ whereby the familiar or homely is suddenly strange; a unique word for which we have in English the unsatisfactory ‘uncanny’. In his essay of 1919, Freud used the word ‘unheimlich’ to describe the disquieting, unsettling short fiction of his time. As has been noted by the critic Mark Fisher and others however, he structured his inquiry into the unheimlich on the stories themselves, unable to create a theory which superseded them. These stories have endured. We have collected together the best of them — the funny, the horrific and the simply disturbing — to offer insight and commentary on the strange world we have been living in. E Nesbitt’s ghost story is elevated from the thousands that were published in popular magazines such as the Strand in the early 20th century by the way she places a barely-competent middle class couple in a situation frighteningly beyond their depth.

“It was surprising what old experiences remembered could do to a presumably educated, civilized man.” And Hugh Denismore, a young doctor driving his mother’s Cadillac from Los Angeles to Phoenix, is eminently educated and civilized. He is privileged, would seem to have the world at his feet, even. Then why does the sight of a few redneck teenagers disconcert him? Why is he reluctant to pick up a disheveled girl hitchhiking along the desert highway? And why is he the first person the police suspect when she is found dead in Arizona a few days later? Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir. In books like In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse she exposed a seething discontent underneath the veneer of twentieth-century prosperity. With The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.

A collection of titles by Edith Nesbit and told in short story for the reader who enjoys the darker side to tales but doesn't want to get bogged down in long Novels or Epics. These stories inspired many a suspense author and would seem at place in a Twilight Zone or Night Gallery episode. While Edith Nesbit was widely known for her childrens books, she had small success in other genres.This book includes a biography of the Author.

The Mexican American author Gary Soto draws on his own experience of growing up in California's Central Valley in this finely crafted collection of eleven short stories that reveal big themes in the small events of daily life. Crooked teeth, ponytailed girls, embarrassing grandfathers, imposter Barbies, annoying brothers, Little League tryouts, and karate lessons weave the colorful fabric of Soto's world. The smart, tough, vulnerable kids in these stories are Latino, but their dreams and desires belong to all of us. Glossary of Spanish terms included. Awards: ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Booklist Editors' Choice, Horn Book Fanfare Selection, Judy Lopez Memorial Honor Book, Parenting Magazine's Reading Magic Award, John and Patricia Beatty Award

Figural and non-figural supports are a ubiquitous feature of Roman marble sculpture; they appear in sculptures ranging in size from miniature to colossal and of all levels of quality. At odds with modern ideas about beauty, completeness, and visual congruence, these elements, especially non-figural struts, have been dismissed by scholars as mere safeguards for production and transport. However, close examination of these features reveals the tastes and expectations of those who commissioned, bought, and displayed marble sculptures throughout the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Drawing on a large body of examples, Greek and Latin literary sources, and modern theories of visual culture, this study constitutes the first comprehensive investigation of non-figural supports in Roman sculpture. The book overturns previous conceptions of Roman visual values and traditions and challenges our understanding of the Roman reception of Greek art.

Man-Size in Marble by Edith Nesbit

A groom promises to be at the church on time, even if he has to come back from the grave to do it. A man inherits a property where he discovers a portrait of a woman that will change his life forever. Two newlyweds find their dream country cottage, unaware of an ancient curse from the previous owners. A gripping, unsettling and utterly chilling collection of short stories from one of Britain's best loved storytellers.

When newlyweds find the cottage of their dreams in the English countryside, they are warned that long-ago owners, two evil knights, always return on Halloween night.

An essential American novel from Sandra Dallas, an unparalleled writer of our history, and our deepest emotions... During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers. This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things. Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest--and best--parts of the human heart.